<p>CollegeKid1090-- hahahaha. "no, fun! do you have like, freinds to hang out with?" :D</p>
<p>This thread can't die, it is amazing! So, I will share my story, which is definitely not quite as good as some others, but whatever.</p>
<p>I had an interview at Wesleyan over the summer. My interviewer was rather attractive -- both my dad and I thought that he looked EXACTLY like a younger version of Mathew McConaughey. I couldn't really get over this so I'm sure I acted like an idiot the entire time. Luckily, I decided not to apply to Wesleyan in the end, so it doesn't really matter now.</p>
<p>I have color synaesthesia. I had an interview for UPenn at a tea shop, where my interviewer ordered a blueberry muffin. I kept thinking about how blueberries were really mauve in my mind. It did not help that I'd written my questions down on notecards, in blue ink. I couldn't read the words on the card because all I could see was mauve. The interviewer didn't seem to notice, I hope, because I'd practically memorized the questions.</p>
<p>My MIT interviewer, after learning about my passion for theater, asked me what the difference is between "jazz fingers" and "spirit hands." Well, I told her it is "jazz hands" and "spirit fingers," and then proceeded to show her how both are done. It was hilarious, but I really think we bonded over it!</p>
<p>too funny 10</p>
<p>I was interviewing for an ambassadorial program, and one of the questions was where I was most looking forward to visiting. Of course, I say, "Well, I am really excited about seeing ______." Which wasn't on the itenerary. The lady looked at me like I was insane and said, "Umm, we're actually not going there.... Are you thinking of another program?" I almost puked.</p>
<p>bump! please continue, since RD interviews are on the way!</p>
<p>I had the worst interview so far three weeks ago. I won't say what school it is exactly, but I will say that it has a very strong liberal education, and that it has an engineering school attached(requires separate admission- this is important.)</p>
<p>This school is very well regarded, even here on CC.</p>
<p>The meeting took place at a Starbucks, and I waited for about half and hour after my time for the interviewer to finish with his current applicant. And then another half hour. Finally I approached him, and he dismissed the girl. </p>
<p>We then started talking. Basically he said that the school had filled up(more or less) on ED and that it was important to have a safety. I had no problem with this. However, we spent more time talking about my local state school rather than his school. Not a huge problem, until he mentioned that he was an engineer.</p>
<p>A bit about myself:</p>
<p>I go to a program that is full of engineers, and have taken a few pre-engineering classes. They have made me decide not to become one. I don't feel that the career is for me, and am looking to major in liberal arts(maybe math, maybe.) The only reason this is important is that I applied to the school that has a basic curriculum, which is heavily focused on the liberal arts. Not the engineering school. The deadline has passed. This is really important.</p>
<p>However, before we talked about me, he began talking about women in engineering, and the firing of the Harvard president for some sexist comments. On its own, I could have been ok with it. I understand how firing people for opinions could be looked down upon in a collegiate environment, in the interest of discourse.</p>
<p>More importantly, however, was his tone and attitude while discussing it. Particularly after saying that he believed women were genetically less capable in math, he said "And I could go on." Or some such thing, but in such a way that I felt really, really uncomfortable. I mean yes, I'm a male, but my mother has always stressed a lot of gender equality. A controversial opinion is one thing, I'm very used to dealing with that. It was the undercurrent of misogyny that shook me. (I cannot replicate in words what he said. It was in the tone and the flow of the conversation. I admit I may have misconstrued his words, but it really didn't feel that way at all to me.) </p>
<p>Any way, having done that, he noticed that program I talked about earlier. He proceeded to tell me that I should do what he did and persue a degree in engineering, because it was a good paycheck. </p>
<p>(I'll say only this much about this, but many people in this program I've talked about were engineers for Bell Labs/Lucent. To call some of them bitter would be putting it very lightly. I don't see the stability or room for upward mobility. I know plenty of people becoming engineers, but it's really not for me.)</p>
<p>Now, this is also understandable. After all, it's not as though he was doing more than offering a suggestion. However, I need to stress, I could not feasibly do what he was asking. The engineering deadline had gone and passed. The futility of what he was saying and was about to say only made it more unnerving.</p>
<p>I said that I really had no interest, and that I wasn't very good at engineering. I then went on to talk about how I'd like to learn in the liberal arts.</p>
<p>Having said this, I listened to him as he said, "Well, liberal arts classes are fun and easy, but really you seem to have the skillset of an engineer(he had no way to know this) and it is a good job."</p>
<p>I found it really condescending that he would basically insult me and my course of study, present a non-extant option as an alternative, and ignore everything I had told him. In fact, and I only realize this just now, I had specifically said that I'd like to go to law school. He still said I should become an engineer.</p>
<p>I've been insecure this whole time, I really didn't need to hear how my choice was basically wrong in life, that I should choose a direction that is already closed to me, that I'm not good enough for the school, that women are inferior to men, and that I should go work for the rest of my life in a field I'm not good at, and that I don't like at all.</p>
<p>Finally I asked him about something rather controversial that happened on campus recently. He said he didn't care, and was no longer involved in politics, having become an engineer. While not a big deal, I am rather involved, and really appreciated the history of this school, in the 60's and 70's especially(when it was famous for intense liberalism and activism. This fellow graduated there in those decades.) While not nearly(by any means) as bad as the other stuff, I found it even more hurt my opinion of the school. And also really not want to become an engineer.</p>
<p>For random advice, I guess I could just walk away and say "Ok...". For a college interview, it was really unnerving. </p>
<p>Also, we talked about me and the college, in total, about as many times as above. Nearly two minutes(maybe) out of two hours spent on the interview.</p>
<p>I no longer want to go to this school.</p>
<p>My interview wasn't as awkward as some of the others here (thank goodness lol). It was with one of the Ivies, I won't say which one. I was just annoyed (incredibly) with the way my interviewer took down notes on my childhood!</p>
<p>Me: Yeah, so back in '91 we moved to Providence, and I basically grew up there...
Interviewer: '91. Providence. <em>writes it down</em>
Me: And then after my Dad got his MBA from Yale in '93, he joined us in Rhode Island.. before that he would be in New Haven for the weekdays and make a trip back up to be with us over the weekends.
Interviewer: <em>repeats what I say and writes it down</em>
Me: And then in '97 we moved to .... and in '01 we moved to New Zealand..
Interviewer: Hold on... in '97... and then in '01...</p>
<p>She just kept on interrupting me, repeating what I said, and writing down exactly the years and places I'd lived in... it totally defeated what I was trying to achieve - i.e. show my (what I thought would be interesting) childhood and how I learned from the various cultures/countries I've grown up in. She just murdered it with the constant NOTE-TAKING and I was so deflated by the time she'd gotten all the years and countries right that I forgot to say what I wanted to about those countries.</p>
<p>And she kept on prodding me, "Do you have any questions to ask me about [insert school name here]?" So I kept coming up with questions. I mean, I'd researched on it and all so I could sound relatively intelligent about the school, but enough already! lol. She asks me this for the 10th time as the interview ends and as we're getting up and so out of desperation, not wanting to end on a bad note, I say, "Oh yeah, what is it that you call yourselves?" (E.g. Yale bulldogs) Of course I already know the answer to this, having read up on the school, and so I answer my own question and then say, " - right?"</p>
<p>And she goes "Oh, no, no. I'm not sure really. Not that... No, we don't call ourselves anything."</p>
<p>Me: ....</p>
<p>"Hello.. Andrew, is it? Before we start I have a que - "
"I'm really passionate about Harvard and all it stands for! I'm a hard worker, as demonstrated by my high school grades and I have a real passion for politics and economics and and and - "
"Andrew. ANDREW."
"and and and...Yes?"
"Where are your pants?"</p>
<p>I have 2 different ones:</p>
<p>Interview for a Summer Job:
for some reason we got into a conversation about the different boroughs in New York and about all of the private schools:
Me: My least favorite borough is Brooklyn.
Interviewer: I live in Brooklyn.
.......
Me: I think many private schools are overrated.
Interviewer: I went to private school.</p>
<p>College Interview Number 1:
Interviewer: So you visited campus?
Me: Yes, but I never did a formal tour.
Interviewer: Okay, pop quiz. What's the mascot?
Me: Uh....i'm not sure.
Interviewer: You failed the pop quiz. Do you have any questions for me?
Me: How was it adjusting to a more suburban environment after growing up in NYC? I'm sure that [insert city where college is in] felt a lot smaller than NYC.
Interviewer: No, actually [name of city] is bigger.</p>
<p>My interviewer ( for top 3 rated school) asked me what do I think about the absence of black fathers ( I am black, without a father btw) and then when he found I was Christian asked what defines my Christianity. Those questions were pretty awk, at least for me because I was not expecting them.</p>
<p>Oops. I accidentally showed up to my Duke interview 3 hours early, so I ended up waiting in Coffee Society for half an hour. Then I walked home, miserably, because she never left her phone number with me.</p>
<p>When I get home, my dad tells me that she called (yay!), and it turns out it was at two in the afternoon, not eleven in the morning. I could have sworn it was eleven, but eh, the interviewer's always right :) My dad proceeds to tell her on the phone that I was already there. I can't believe he did that, haha. Oh well.</p>
<p>Then I go back there at two, and - okay, so the walls of the shop are glass, so I'm looking inside and there's this Asian lady staring at me! (My interviewer is Asian). So I thought it was her, and I stared back as I walked into the cafe. But there was NO INDICATION whatsoever to come over or anything, even though she had papers in front of her and looked like she could have been the interviewer. So I stared some more, and she continued to stare back (this was like for twenty seconds or something!).</p>
<p>So finally I look away, and walk around the rest of the shop, confused out of my mind. Somebody approaches me. I turn around, and THANK GOODNESS it is my interviewer. Then she walks back to her table - which is right next to the staring lady's table. AWKWARD! She obviously saw the entire staring episode. Tramautizing.</p>
<p>This was about the most awkward interview ever. I cringe when I think about it.
It was for a small, highly selective LAC in New England.</p>
<p>I live in NY, so my interviewer decided to meet me at 4pm at a Starbucks about 3 blocks away from Rockefeller Center. Two weeks before Christmas. For those of you who don't know, Manhattan tends to be packed with tourists for the entire month of December. Now try going near the massive Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center. Or near those famous windows of Saks and Lord and Taylor. Let's just say that the Starbucks that my interviewer chose was smack in the middle of all this excitement, which meant that it was smack in the middle of every tourist you can possibly imagine.
So I thought it would be wise to get to the Starbucks about 20 minutes before my interviewer. I sent my mom to a Barnes and Noble about a block away, to go to their Starbucks inside the store and have a cup of tea while she waited.</p>
<p>I waited a while in the crowded Starbucks, and finally my interviewer came in. I had a (literally) ten minute interview. It wasn't that we didn't click...it was that she didn't have questions prepared and didn't want to waste her lunch break on me.</p>
<p>So I walked over to the Barnes and Noble, went up the escalator to their Starbucks, and chatted with my mother as she finished her tea (yes, the interview was so short that she didn't even have a chance to finish her tea). I complained for a few minutes about the fact that I had left school early, elbowed my way through the most crowded part of the city, and worked myself up over a freaking 10 minute interview.</p>
<p>Of course, I then realized my interviewer was about ten feet away, shopping for books.</p>
<p>I hope she didn't hear. Let's just say that my mom was forced to throw out her tea, and we ran down the escalator and got out of that store ASAP.</p>
<p>Ugh.</p>
<p>That stinks =(.</p>
<p>Mine was just kind of funny.</p>
<p>Last Friday I was interviewing for this selective program at Ohio State. My interviewers (it was a three on one) asked me a bunch of questions and then came to, "What are three things you would change about yourself if you could?"</p>
<p>So I stumbled over the first one and said that I would be one of those people who does all their homework right when they get home and has the rest of the day to relax. Then I said that I would be less shy around people I don't know and be able to jump into conversations with ease. Then I said I wish I could appreciate literature as much as some people can. Finally, I said, "Oh wait! I have one more! I wish I could write to make people happy." They all kind of just gazed at me and then the leader of the interview said, "In the four years that I've been leading interviews, we've never had anyone give us more than three things they would change about themselves. Most people actually have trouble coming up with three and can only give one or two."</p>
<p>I guess I'm just special.</p>
<p>Two awkward moments, both last week....</p>
<p>Program Director at School A: So you got into our program. You must have pretty good grades and test scores!?</p>
<p>Son: My grades are good, but I only got a 23 on my ACT. That was absolutely horrible!</p>
<p>Program Director A: Actually that's pretty good. My son just got a 22.</p>
<p>Admissions at School B: Thanks for coming in for a tour. Unfortunately, I just learned that you weren't accepted to the program you wanted. Let me show you a list of some other majors you may want to consider.</p>
<p>Son: I think we'll just skip the tour. Thanks anyway.</p>
<p>Admissions B: Well, I hope I don't see you at any doctors' offices. (My son applied for physician assistant program.) Ahhh.....I mean, that would mean I was sick. (She was clearly embarassed.)</p>
<p>A good comeback from my son would have been, "I hope I never have to treat you." </p>
<p>Nothing like being rejected in person! Interviewer claimed the decision was made between Monday, the date we scheduled the tour, and Friday, the day of the tour. Maybe just our bad luck!</p>
<p>Well then, I had my first interview today (possibly my last, not a lot of colleges have alumni ready in South America, I think). It was... um, interesting.
The moment we started talking I said something stupid, so I thought it'd be okay to just 'be me', therefore I said: "wait, that was silly just now. Um, it's just that I'm nervous, you know. Actually, hey, let's start again. Ready? Okay, go. Hello!" The woman just stared at me for a few seconds and made me feel like a retarded ape.
Things got better after a while, but of course something had to happen. I'm assuming she had a bad impression of me based on my attempted reset action, but I ended up having a bad impression of her as well. We started talking about my grandfather and how he escaped the S.S, and then she commented on the Holocaust. She said that the Holocaust was a matter of Darwinism, survival of the fittest. I stared back in shock and was uncomfortable until the interview ended. I couldn't even mention the EC's I wanted to mention the most because her comment really threw me off, especially since I'd been working with Holocaust survivors and all.</p>
<p>Oh well, at least I can say I went through the college interview experience, yay!</p>
<p>Oh, and @insanity90: bummer it was only 10 minutes. Lazy person :/</p>
<p>catsushi Who did you have an interview with for Whitman College? Same thing happened with me haha</p>
<p>I had an interview with Whitman and the adcom asked me what my friends would think of me. I said one of my friends would call me a compulsive lier......... my friend said that to me the night before my interview... the adcom's eyes got bigger and he wa like REALLY???? and i was like ....... im screwed.....</p>
<p>Job interview:
"So, really, how do you do everything?"<br>
"Um, I balance my schedule and just..get things done."
"No, really, how do you do it. I want a play by play. Hour by hour ...24 hours. Normal day. Do you ..sleep or something?"
Me: "....Well, I wake up around...6::30. Then I take a shower from maybe 6:30 to ...6:45. Then, I..." (I continued until I got to 12, before, I was interrupted with the question on what I do from 12-6:30.)</p>
<p>At the end, "....No, really, how do you do that!?"</p>
<p>Sufficiently to say, I didn't get the job.</p>